For more than ten years, the International Office for Water (OiEau) has been supporting the Cambodian authorities in implementing Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in Cambodia thanks to an institutional cooperation project funded by the French Rhine-Meuse and Loire-Bretagne water agencies.
The publication of a sub-decree on river basin management in 2015 formalised the management of water resources by hydrographic unit, with the creation of a national committee for river basin management, as well as provincial and municipal basin committees.
Through the IWRM project in the Stung Sen pilot basin, a basin committee bringing together inter-institutional stakeholders from two provinces has been set up. Over the years, OiEau has supported this basin committee and its secretariat so that they can play their role with full knowledge of the crosssectoral issues linked to water resources in the Stung Sen area, which crosses the provinces of Preah Vihear and Kampong Thom.
On the strength of this long-term pilot experience, French Development Agency (AFD) wanted OiEau, through the WAT4CAM (Water for Cambodia) project, to formulate recommendations to improve the implementation of IWRM in Cambodia. For several months, OiEau has therefore been working on the preparation of a report of recommendations that will enable the Cambodian authorities to make the implementation of IWRM more effective at the level of the country’s river basins. These recommendations are based on feedback from the IWRM project in the Stung Sen basin, but also from other basin management experiments in the country, with the support of various international aid agencies.
In this context, an OiEau delegation met the Minister for Water Resources and Meteorology (MOWRAM) and several Secretaries of State in January 2024. The discussions enabled the broad outlines of the recommendations currently being finalised to be fleshed out, with the aim of coordinating water resource planning at the various scales of river basins (macro-regions, sub-basins).
The preparation of this report of recommendations coincides conveniently with the appointment of the members of the national committee for river basin management and its secretariat at the end of 2023. This committee should breathe new life into Cambodian IWRM and meet for the first time in 2024.